


In Dreams of Delirium

by JabberWockyWednesday



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Anubis - Freeform, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, obscure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-08-01 04:03:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16277438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JabberWockyWednesday/pseuds/JabberWockyWednesday
Summary: A meeting is had over destruction, a dream is envisioned in time. It's a warning depicting the systematic suicide of a banished demigod. This is a love story between two that cannot be together. A story of two cities, a body's addiction to beauty, the lashes of lost touches, and what some say was the start of the God of Mischiefs true hatred for everyone and everything of "order."





	In Dreams of Delirium

A/N: Hello! I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think. :) Maaaybe a chapter two. IDK, I have some idea's though.

* * *

 

A dream is had with the power of a prophecy depicting the systematic suicide of a wrongly banished and deserted demigod. This is a love story between two that cannot be. A story of two cities, a body's addiction to beauty, the lashes of lost touches, and what some say was the start of the God of Mischiefs true hatred for everyone and everything "good."

 

**A Systematic Suicide.**

..

..

 

There is a very old tapestry that hangs in front of a wood boarded window in an old abandoned building. The windows hold no glass and its holey ceiling leaks the rare times it rains but the wind is easily blocked though finds an entrance in small cracks and holes throughout the stone. The edges of the dark tan tapestry are very torn and frayed and only Odin knows if the deep tan color was once any shade of white. The tapestry waves because the gap in the plyboards attached to the wall let in the occasional trail of wind but sometimes there is no wind and the tapestry waves for what seems like no reason at all. No matter, the candlelight will skew the scene regardless and make things move that aren't but one is better to go without asking questions about such oddities that are expected somewhere like here. There are another few windows in the room, but there isn't another tapestry though the windows are boarded up and all boards have attached to them the same sign.

**محکمہ پولیس مراكش**

**MARRAKECH POLICE DEPARTMENT**

**داخلہ منع ہے**

**DO NOT REMOVE!**

It appeared the upper city and it slums had found something in common because boarded up windows give whoever was inside just as much privacy as those on the outside wanted ignorance. These stone and brick buildings have been standing for a very, very long time and have been gutted for long enough that all their bones are ripped and all that is valuable has been sold off. The building that this maybe tan tapestry hangs in is located where even the police tend to avoid if not directly called to. Like every rotting ghetto there is a lot of crime, lots of cracked floors and people but overall this is just a very dirty and dark place where normal people have no place traveling to and those who do, keep their business between themselves and whomever they are there to meet. This isn't a pretty part of the world but is common in cities and even holds a mirror in dilapidating rural towns across the earth. These lonely skeleton structures that are not yet reclaimed by nature are instead obviously still dying a slow, painful death of a suffering forest. This part of the world is a space between the forgotten and the grave which is the perfect place to rot away in silence if that's what you wish to do.

Below this tapestry lays a mattress that's pushed out into the room enough for a person to circle around. The mattress is just as rotted as the rag that's disguised itself as a blanket that covers a figure that's just as rotted as the rest. The room isn't very big, it must have been used at one point as an office or meeting room... There's a small bathroom in the far corner but it's disgusting and shattered like all the rest but besides that and the noose that hangs from the center of the ceiling, there is nothing but the candles that never seem to be replaced or shrink in size.

Sometimes the rope will swing, but it's not for the same reason the tapestry waves.

Suddenly, from the mattress, a loud rattling breath is taken through the desert dry lips of the almost-corpse whose eyes flicker away from an entire world built away from this hell. The candlelight had grown brighter just a moment before but there will not be an exhale that follows right away… Instead, there will be an unsettling space of time that allows a young man in a red hoodie and oversized jeans to shlump into the room through the doorless open stone threshold.

"Hey." He whispers in a tone that is neither surprised nor accustomed as he makes his way across the cold, grey stone floor.

The young man's face reflects a man in his thirties but he's much older than that. His knuckles are scrapped up and his shoes were closed with crumpled duct tape. His hair is patched but that's okay because his hood hides that feature but does little for the pick holes on the face and neck. Every inch of this man was dirty and gutted but that didn't matter here.

"Visitors have been far and in between." The man sighed as he lands into a sit beside the mattress. "I guess you finally get what you want. In more ways than one..."

The breath is finally pushed out in a wave of air that mimics more of the slow opening of a dusty attic door than the breath of a human. The candles flicker and the noose swings just slightly which doesn't go unnoticed by the man who also wouldn't look up. He's busy with his hands that hang between his raised knees but he'll look around the room for a moment before looking down at her gaunt and skeletal face.

"Can I ask you a question?" He speaks to her as if she'll answer.

He waits knowing she won't say anything at all but grants her that respect as he watches ink black eyes roll and eyelids flutter. He knows she can hear him. They've been here together for a very long time and his voice is of the incredible few she still is able to recall...

"If you die…. what happens to us?"

Nothing, but he isn't watching her for anything anyway. He's lost in a moment of heavy emotion as the shadows flicker forebodingly in the silent room, hallucinating the form of figures within its blackness. He's looking between his legs again. He's pulling together a spoon and a baggy from his pocket before taking from his pack a clear plastic water bottle. Like a chemist, he crushes drugs into a power that he gathers on the spoon and mixes this with the water before lighting the flame of his red lighter under the metal holder of the spoon

"I hope we get to go to.." He mutters as he pulls the drug into the syringe skillfully. "We're all really, really tired."

He can't use her forearms because the space is literally rotten and black; this is the same for the back of her legs, ankles and throat and much of her hands and the space between fingers and toes. Like it was said; they've been here a very, very long time and this ritual had happened often enough for the entire length of their knowledge of each other. Sighing, the young man's hand will follow blown veins that etch her skin and he'll pull his fingers down between the corpses breasts and down onto her stomach over more holes of rot and decay. Track marks line her body like a map to the soul that is just a black and dead or like a metro map that shows the way out of this hell. Removing his hand he pulls her legs apart, opening up her thigh where he finds a decent area.

"It's okay though," He assured as he pushed the syringe into the bone coated skin without her flinching. "Master Tio says he feels the end is near."

Fluttering eyes match a fluttering heart and for a minute her breath comes more rapid before her body suddenly deflates and goes still again. She's falling into the high now and the red sweater wearing man will watch her chest pulse as he caresses the thigh of the available for a moment before adjusting his pants and clearing his throat. Pushing away the blanket he exposes the scantily clad, once-a-woman form whose body would be better off used as an anatomy lesson. His fingers slowly caress the dirty and marked fatless skin slowly before stopping at the sound of a throat clearing. The tap of a step is heard from the hall before another man's voice enters the room with a gruff, knowing tone.

"Gen…."

"Yeah.." The man would growl through grit teeth as he removed his hand and pushed the rag back over her relaxing form. "Yeah, I'm coming."

..

…

...

...

...

...

..

Asgard is not a place. It's a people… That's true. but lots of people in a group make a community and a community needs somewhere to grow and set roots. This community is a civilization of loyalty that even a God like Loki finds himself a slave to. It's said that's why the God of little loyalty worked so hard to find a new planet for the people after Ragnarök. Expensive wine had been shared over silver-tongued and two-faced responses from the God of Tricks and eventually, deals would be made and contracts signed. His brother Thor had found the realtor sure, but Loki would pride himself on the conversations held and official ownership of the planet.

This new planet was not the largest planet, which was fine because Asgard didn't need all that and never had. They were very much happy with the size they had before and so that is what would stay. With much of the same makings of the planet before that made this planet more homely, there were drastic changes in the corners of spaces. Under the sun the water looked glossy, almost like mercury while at night, the many rivers and seas would shimmer dangerously, almost hungrily in a phosphorus glow. Of course, the water was safe, as was the majority of things that grew. Most of everything that was a plant was luminous and would glow different colors and mixtures depending on the plant and its health among other factors. It was a world that was easily adapted to by the Asgardians, rather quickly life was built to sustain once again.

Something that was not so well known though was that the planet was rather near to Earth and that was hardly known mostly just because no one really asked. Intentional, with spaceships and the society's knowledge, Thor could walk the streets of modern Earth without getting lynched by some medieval mob that screamed witchcraft and evil. He had gatherings now with The Avengers and could go and come as he pleased with a people just as out place as he which was something he found comforting. But there was one individual that Thor would miss the most as buildings were raised and his people came to find comfort.

Loki.

The God of Mischief and Tricks had simply vanished overnight without a word or wisp of where and as hard as Thor had tried, The God of Thunder had yet to locate his brothers' essence. The universe was a mighty place but right then, Asgard needed him to rebuild so that is where he had put his attention to.

As time has it, there would come a day where routine would change and the course of the day would be harshly interrupted. This day would start like many others with the rise of a warm sun but Thor would wake knowing this day was different. Something was going to happen. He didn't know what or when but knew it was a storm of some sort. For this reason, Thor would find himself among the people he swore to protect that day, unsure of where to put his attention and spending the time in hypervigilance. Like many other stories, this one would start with a powerful vision that would take Thor from Asgard in the middle of a conversation.

"Excuse me." He'd say to a collected group of townspeople he had been talking to as he turned away, suddenly feeling quite ill out of nowhere. His first stumble would have easily gone away unnoticed if he hadn't stumbled his next few steps with weakened knees and for whatever reason, his vibrant world was fading into black and whites which usually only meant a premonition of the rarest kinds. He'd vanish from the center of the town and would reappear again on top of a castle tower, somewhere he didn't mean to go to, and a place that he was not alone in when he arrived.

There's a man in a white and gold robe who looked very official and indeed was. Spied by the golden eyes of the jackal-headed creature, the dog-headed man's white teeth were bared as it's cloth and leather wrapped chest and lower half twist, exposing the sith like staff held by sharp-clawed nails.

"Naeem"A voice comes from under the white and gold face hiding hood and the jackal-headed man backs away as the very, very old looking man steps forwards.

"Is who stands before me, the Thunder God, Thor. Son of Odin, second in command of Asgard, a member of the elite protector's group of Earth, The Avengers?"

Thor stood for a moment in front of the hunched old man whose hood must have hidden his eyes well Thor flinched his hand to one side and got no response. He flinched his hand to the other and when he got no response again he looked at an angle to the half-dog who clenched his fists before Thor waved a hand in front of the man's face. A waving hand whose wrist was that was caught with such speed it could have taken a fly out of the air and with such a grip that Thor struggled a moment before being released

"Second in command?" Thor laughs returning to the conversation. "Well, honestly the entire "Ruler of Asgard" title is still being sorted out. You know, my brother is not actually even here right now so I'd say I was the Ruler since I am the one here. ruling." He ends with a cocky smirk and his arms stretched outwards showing the work of his new planet.

"So there is no official, King? Just brothers known of relm shaking war? Oh dear, this will not do at all…." The old man grumbles as he shuffles towards the outer edge of the tower.

For a moment, Thor hopped the man was not readying to jump from the tower and he watched to see if the old man would raise his head to look outwards. This was a very tall tower and the man kept getting closer and closer to its edge. He doesn't, but Thor does hear the growling of the dog whose inched his way closer while he's been distracted. He'd stop before talking with his jaw slightly open, his mind figuring out an answer as his face set back straight.

"I suppose I understand the conflict but as you can see, things seem to be working just fine and..."

There's a sound that at first sounds like coughing but with a bit of attention is actually chuckling that came from the figure who stood with the hunched back facing him.

"And, where is Loki? God of Mischief and Tricks. Do you know?"

Thor pauses, suddenly feeling uncomfortable in the shadows that sit to his back. He knows there's nothing to worry, but still dread falls over his shoulders.

"No."

"How long?"

Thor suddenly approaches the old man, his step unintentionally heavy. "Will you at least face me!?"

Obliging almost immediately, The old man whose features are still unknown turns from the kingdom back to the apparent king but doesn't raise his head or shed his hood. Evidently, the tone Thor used was wildly inappropriate for such an apparently important figure and the dog-man has taken to approaching, teeth bared.

"I wasn't going to go much further than that." He assures Naeem with both his hands raised. "Calm down."

"You don't tell me what to do, elemental." The growl of the god is threatening like the galloping of war horses against the dusty battlefield.

"And what are you?" Thor spits.

"I am of Death. Irrelevant to time and space. Everything passes through a Death. I am constant..."

"Then who are you?" Thor waves his hand at the older man who had still yet to show his face.

"I am Fear. The creator of natural selection and the controller of limitations and failular. Your father did more than just sit on the throat of Asgard. He had grown a world strong enough for him to enter the Elite as well."

"And you are.. Elite?" Thor questioned with a raised eyebrow and adjustment to his stance.

"Yes."

"Then what's he?"

With a temper that resembled the length of the wick on a stick of dynamite, the dog-man growled a bone-rattling noise that would shape a person back to respects, but not a God like he.

"I am a guardian of the dominion masters.."

"More phrases that are foreign to me," Thor sighs.

Habitually one to grow bored rather quickly of idle chatter, his attention has been moved to stare out around the newly built planet. Vines hang from treetops of multi-floor leaves and branches of the many trees created a canopy some locations while in others had build homes riverside near open areas.

"Then your father taught you nothing," The old man turns towards the jackal-headed god whose lip shivers as his hand reaches around to his back.

A rolled black parchment is exchanged between the two before the old man approaches again, reaching his hand out, offering Thor the leather-bound page. Perhaps if it were Loki the parchment wouldn't have been taken so fast and silent messages of weakness and excitement would not have been exposed by those who rule the planet. But Thor would be Thor, a cocky God who thinks little of such small gestures and signs. Quickly, the parchment is opened with the leather wrap not so gingerly untied; the page is open and instead of words a small, grey layer shimmers.

"Glance through the Minabra and see the now."

A Minabra was a mages ink that when applied to this particular paper that can only be taken from a particular tree, opened a gateway to a star somewhere assigned. This star was looking into a blackness that was not so dark.

"What is this of?" Thor furrows his brow, going to twist the paper before stopping himself.

"An end."

Thor looked up, first at the dog-man and then down at the paper.

A whiteness so blinding it nearly shone through the window could be seen as a twisting, cloudy grey form oozes along. Massive in size, Thor shook his head, never seeing the likes of his before.

"Why are you here talking talk to me?" Thor asks, lowering the paper and rolling it back up.

"You were not our first option.." The old man gives a small shrug. "Earth is one of the many planets protected under the Infancy Act… Still so young and disconnected, as of late a group of renegades named, The Avengers have made their mark on that planet, but there is another who we would have contacted first."

Thor's mouth is suddenly very dry as old memories of forgotten mistakes are brought back, forcing harsh scars to be opened again like a rip of a bandaid off a scab.

"Yes.. You do remember." The old man still has not shown any of his face but Thor knows that the old man is smiling as his aura is very loud.

"You've lost communication with…" He tried to talk the monkish man into saying the name he tried so hard to pull up but wouldn't come.

Another old, dusty chuckle immits. "Imagine if Loki was here..."

Taking a physical step back now, Thor shakes his head.

"I will carry your message to the Avengers.." He pushes out, but this isn't pleasing at all made worse by the monk showing his disinterest by shrugging his robbed shoulder casually.

"That's not what I've asked of you… Can you not hear?"

Deciding not to play the game of insults, Thor shifts on his feet. "Then what do I do?"

"The Avengers are not of the Elite and nor are you… Delirium is…. And you will find her and you will establish communication."

"And why will I do these things?"

The dog-man almost laughs, "Because the leader told you to."

"Not just for that." The old man speaks softly, keeping his composure. "The state of your friendly planet is in jeopardy and as a planet who cannot protect itself, you are sanctioned to protect it to the best of your ability."

"Yes. Of course." He sighes. "Like I said before... I will contact them now.. Well.. when you're done...here."

"YOU will seek out Delirium. This is not a task for another because a human can not touch power." The old man assures.

"And what if I can't find her… I wouldn't even know where to start.."

"Then, by law I must speak to Loki."

Thor grips his hammers handle tightly. "You can't do that to him."

The energy had risen but the old man is not something weak. The hooded head cocks to the side and while even wearing a hood Thor can see the sarcasm in the movement.. "Why not?"

"I do not want to play these games with you, Oh, Lord of Fear and creature of the Elites… You know as well as I do there is a story behind it all. A story of laws."

"A story of laws, banishment and love. I, oh I know of your trasspasses Thor…."

"You telling him would be nothing but a horrible joke."

"Then perhaps the God of Mischief will find it funny." From under his hood Thor could see the man's lips turning upwards in a mocking smile.

Taking a deep breath, he lowers his arm and shakes his head. "You couldn't talk to him anyway… No one has seen Loki since the first night."

"We will find him." The monk assures. "We will travel to every part of every planet to find him because that is our job, and our job must be done."

"I am too a God-king!"

"Then establish yourself and go fix your burdens, Master Thor. God of cloud friction and noise.."

"How dare you come to my planet and speak so low of me!" He tried to keep his voice to a thunder-like roar, but this was something hard to keep inside his chest with all the weight of regret that took up the space.

The jackals' teeth are flaring again, his intimidating septor ready to destroy.

"With so much power you'd assume that your father would have taught you about us." Naeem whispered as he held himself back.

"With such importance, I'd think the same." Thor agrees.

Fanged teeth flare again as muscles flex and eyes are passed between Gods.

"So, now you understand." The robed man nods his head. 'Be quick. Time is of importance."

"But what do I do when…."

But nothing else is said because the Dog-man has sliced the air with the tip of the sith and the old man has started to walk away.

"Look, whoever you are..." Thor tried but it was in vain. There was nothing more that was said.

Thor didn't expect for the old man in the tattered tan robe to turn around and look at him, but he'd carry on almost just as strongly... "I can't just… go find Delerium… not after…" He motioned with his arm and the head of the robe shook back and forth as the old man turned around a final time.

"Your problems with the past are none of my concern. Nor, are they part of the task assigned. Put your personal life aside and alert the Relmwatcher that she needs to act on the infant before it's wiped from space forever."

After this, the figure would step through the flashing slit, followed closely by the dog-man who would snarl at Thor one last time before raising the staff and slamming the bottom onto the stone erupting a shock wave that took Thor away from consciousness.

 

 

**Dreamscape**

_This wasn't a dream... It was more like the beginning of what would be a nightmare. Thrust into a world of grayscale and loud static black lines, the world is lit not by a sun, but just lit on all its own greyness. A cityscape… there are dark dirty streets, broken cement tops and empty black windows of towering abandoned buildings that looked like they were screaming… Looking at his hands he sees the outline shiver like the edges of the world around him. A dreamscape, he reasons but doesn't understand what image he's in. This was Earth… He could tell by the obvious architecture and city elements but the world he was in was laced with her. The edges of the buildings have heads of snakes and the windows all looked and felt like they were watching eyes. There are people but their face and features are indistinguishable as are their conversations that pass him by in blurs._

_There is nothing detailed, no sign names no expressions no extras, just an artist's rough scribble of something meant to be basic. His world flashes with the scream of a crow and now he's in a stairwell surrounded by stone, windowless walls. The darkness twitches like lights and the walls drip like_ liquid _looking stone. The stairs look flat as if there is no drop but as he looks up the stairs don't raise quite right. There's static water moving by his feet and so he starts upwards, following where the stream drains from but as soon as he sees a red arrow against the wall the stairs collapse and Thor is dropped without dropping._

 _He doesn't feel like he's dropping but he has to be because when he looks down he'll see the stone falling away from him into blackness as he stays floating where he was. Or maybe he was falling to…. Or rising_.. _He couldn't tell._

 _"Hello!" He yells to anything or anyone once the silence becomes_ to _overbearing._

_Instead of a response, his voice shivers the world which will trigger the change to the endless black to the back of a giant feathered bird whose glossy black feathers feel like velvet under his bare fingers and knees. Almost like a mite, Thor is daunted by the size of the bird that makes a sudden turn, flipping the God onto his back. A position that he'll quickly recover from and find his way to his feet. It will take a few minutes to realize the bird is a crow and Thor will have to hold on tightly as the bird slows and drops into an even larger nest. Shivering the visitor off, Thor hits harshly onto the soft-bottomed built nest of sticks, feathers, and mud that sat on top of a very tall and very dead tree..._

_"Damn it." Thor sighs as he pushes himself up, his eyes meeting a form that would make him jump back with a fright._

_The figure that stood in front of him was a something more than a someone but it was her and her form was of a human. She stands as a naked woman with her long black quills upon her head and moonlight white skin that looked like porcelain but he knew felt like an armadillo's shell. He knows who this is but his memory brings his heart down rather than shine any sort of warmth. He knew all too well of the pale skin and deep red lips and he looks away from her constant black eyed staring at him. Against the_ nest _her form resembles the size of the many thin sticks. The figure stands out in the world that is a dream that she just simply isn't apart of. She stands in a higher definition and in a still edged fashion. Her ink black eyes the voids unlike anything else in the world._

_"Delirium." He speaks her name as a ghost between his lips, his eyes mirrored against the evil of his past._

_The figure is so small, so slim… so skinny… But is something that carries with it the truth of the century. What would have been a quick walk across the nest slowed as weights dropped his legs and the ground below him became like_ quicksand. _With the closer he comes to her the more he sees of the form like a chameleon of heavy truth_.. _What he first thought were light bruises turned to black lines that traced more and more of her. With every step she became more and more gangly, with every inch pushed ahead she became thinner and thinner. Paler and paler… She began to rot in front of him and the gore that presented him would only bring him to push harder to reach the vision that never seemed to draw closer any faster. Around ink, black eyes are dark red circles grew and soon her cheeks swallowed and each bone became countable. He stops walking simply because he no longer wants her to decay any further into this horror._

_"Del-"_

The skeletons hand shoots out and yanks Thor closer as if there had been no space between them at all and a flash of lightning ignites the face of death before again his ground is gone.

Thor, Son of Odin and God of Thunder shoots upright with a start that almost sends him into the wooden post of the bed that had been by his head. His startled yell will echo long enough for him to hear it as his world comes back to what he remembered, though he didn't remember ending up on this rug. He places his hand on his forehead and instantly pulls back to show he's sweating which triggered him to feel the heat his body exserted. He lays down and catches his breath, wiping the drool from his cheek as he shook his head. His brain hurt and his eyes were heavy and blinks were turned into extended moments of closed blackness.

He knows what's happening is serious and in a few minutes, he intends on finding this form which stood before him in his mind.

…...

…

From Asgards perception it's been a long while since Thors traveled back to Earth. Long enough for him to build a civilization, but short enough where neither Stark nor Strange had grown another grey hair upon their heads. It was so painfully true with each visit; that time truly deep seep by like the dripping sap on a winter frozen maple tree. He seeks Strange first mostly because Strange was one person to Tony who was part of the Avengers. The near hermit man had the technology to find the something that Delirium was when she didn't want to be found. The man also held enough experience with the strange and otherworldly to not ask too many unnecessary questions but rather enjoy the ride along. Strange had a promise to find those like Delerium… But still there were some questions Thor was aware would be asked and some of these he wasn't ready to answer… for anyone..

Thor leaves Asgard in the hands of his most trusted and shortly enough, he would find himself in the familiar city of New York standing in front of a very familiar home. He looks both ways down the busy city streets and made note of many of the distinguishable faces though the scene did not match up. The architecture didn't match the dreams he reasons as he starts across the street the moment it's clear of cars long enough. He checks the space around the front stoop almost nervously but clearly with expectation and building expectation. Thor didn't know for sure but he felt confident that if he had received the vision he knew most certainly Loki would have as well and this admitted would put him on edge. Up the stairs and with a fist against the wooden door and he's welcomed in immediately and quickly met by Strange who looks quite surprised as he meets Thor in the walk-in of his personal home.

"Thor. It's been not too long…. for us.." The man shrugged. "How can I help you?"

"I need to find someone…."

"A who?" Strange nodded and started off into the home. "Sounds like a conversation to be had in my office. Come on."

A flash and they're in dark wooden office setting with covered windows and filled bookcases. The office is dimly lit and once behind the office desk, Strange pulls up his magic which twirls and spins between his hands.

"First and last name? Age, last known location?" Strange asked casually as he glanced up at him.

"Delirium….That's it.." Thor starts with a shrug as his attention begins to wonder. "Too old to count. Born too far to find…." Thor's voice is an attempted casual that falls to an innocent smirk when under the gaze of Strange again.

For a moment, Strange sits watching Thor from behind his desk before sighing heavily and leaning back into his seat, his hands closing extinguishing the colored magic.

"There's obviously a story." The doctor speaks smoothly as Thor tightens his jaw.

"A story for another time."

"Maybe. Regardless… My magic can't search the galaxy, Thor…."

Glancing out the window to the autumn New York street Thor gives a definite nod.

"She's here on Earth."

The Doctors head is cocked. "She?"

There's weight in Thor's arms as they drop to his sides and he started around the room touching and looking at various things as Strange would turn back to the magic he holds between his hands.

"Any idea where she could be? A sort of… genre of the area?"

"City… Slums outer edge most likely…"

"Would she favor major cities? Or smaller."

"Major.. Most likely.."

Again the doctor signs away his attempt as his eyes stay focused on the twisting orange strings. "What about her esthetic? Scars? Skin color, eye color...?"

"Skin as white as the break of the seas waves... Hair is replaced with black quills upon her head and armor coats her bones for skin." He pauses to collect himself. "She has a bright white scar on her neck… long ways. From an attack." His voice ends in a distant memory as he glances into a glass case filled with the skeleton of a shark.

The Doctor waits for anything more and when nothing comes, Strange adjusts in his seat uncomfortably.

"Something wrong?" Thor asks, turning to Strange whose watching him blankly.

The doctor pushes his hands together collapsing the energy and killing the light. "While I admit I'm quite intrigued in this mystery story as the information collects, I must tell you you're not giving me much to work with. I'm assuming she's an oddity like you so a database like this wouldn't do much anything if I haven't already been made aware of her…. I'm looking for a God on an overpopulated planet of humans."

"What do I do?"

"Tell me what's going on…"

The two would look at each other before Thor would nod but his eyes would remain distracted.

"She came to me in a dream… Delerium is sick and she needs help. It was a vision of immediate aid."

"A dream you say?" Strange is up and out of his seat. "Well. That I can work with."

He's around the desk and in front of Thor landing with a reset in his feet.

"Okay. You think about the location from your dream. You get as close as you can and I'll do the rest. But, if I do this Thor, you will come back and tell me this story…. Do we have an agreement?"

"Yes." Thor agrees. "As long as you can do this."

"Good. Alright. Close your eyes. Run the place through your memory. One place and with your feet on solid grounds. Picture it as distinct as you can." Much like a move that mirrors Loki's Strange pushes his hand into Thor's forehead sending the man stumbling back into Doctor Strange's fire sparking portal.

.

.

...

...

Marrakech

A summers night… The air is alive with the chatter of adults who sit and stand in circles talking by their homes as others passed by on bikes and on foot. Tan polo style T-shirts, slacks that hang over sandals. Arms sit on the waist and fingers hold cigars and smokes. Children are supposed to be in bed but some of those are teenagers who have parties to be visited. It takes Doctor Strange more energy than he'd initially thought but the magic had worked and what stood before Thor as he rose from his stumble is the building he had seen in his dream.

It's a tan stone building with multiple floors and even more windows that look at him empty and still uncomfortable but not so much like eyes. The cracked and dirty stoop is there and so are the three steps that lead up to the green double doors that unlike the dream are fully boarded up with signs on them that tell everyone off in large black letters. He's standing across the street just as before, outside of the sidewalk that's now defined as individual people walk by him without looking at him. He's shadowed by the two buildings above him, shielded by their shadowed slices. The world is no longer a static dream but a physical world of walls and dirt roads and for reasons he can't articulate but understands fully, he feels worse than he would have imagined he would. The pit in his stomach has bloomed into a canopy bed of worry as familiarity mixes with the scent of burning death. Noticing the surroundings, the building looked a lot like the people who passed by him, another feature that was just making everything worse anxiety wise. The building could be described in just the same way as the skin sacks that shuffled by pushing their full, rattling carts with dogs on heavy chain leashes that glanced his way.

Abandoned.

Thor would stand and watch a few streets go by before he starts across the dusty street, only slowing once on the opposite side to look back. The alley he had entered from was empty, the brick wall in the back of it had vanished to the night shadows and Thor would sigh as he starts up the stairs to the double doors that weren't actually secure to the wall. Once through the left of the two, the first thing Thor sees is that the first floor is completely gutted. Rubbish and scattered waste layers about the stone floor among needles, spoons and dirty clothing. The room is a larger entry space where if the sun were out, the large empty windows would light the entire area. Now though, the moon only lights what it wishes and gives a dull lumination to everything else that wasn't captured by shadows. Thor calls out to the closest individual he sees who raises his head as he heard him.

"You," Thor approaches the raggedy black man with a grey scruffy beard and gruffer grey hair that poked out from under his large tweed hat. "Do you know where I can find an alien?"

"You mean the one with the hair…?" The old man grumbled and when Thor said nothing the old man made his hands into circles and put them both up to his eyes like glasses.

Rolling his eyes Thor sighed and nodded his head. "Yup... That's her."

"She turns her tricks in Room 45. It's the only one with a number on it. Yeh can't miss it…" He points across the main hall to the stone steps that lead up and is still watching him when Thor looks back.

The man never mentioned a floor level and Thor thought about this as he traveled up the dark flight of stone steps. Quite disgusting, the stone is chipped away and the walls are broken. The few windows are covered in plyboard but there are holes in the stone that lets the wind in. These are old structures given back to nature without being all that old in reality. Cities are a lot like stars, moving into itself; it's most powerful area rotting the space around it.

As he travels each step he tries to touch what's around him as little as possible though it was near impossible to take a step that didn't include some sort of filth landing under toe. The second floor eventually passes then he continues another floor before stalling as he comes into view of the third-floor landing. He had noticed the red arrow on the wall that that points out of the stairwell and Thor pauses before it. This was an arrow that was not on the two floors behind him and he could only guess would be not on the fourth and top floor above him. Turning into this broken, dirty hall he travels past the doorless rooms in silence where the open windows allow the moon to break the darkness and light up the paint-broken and stained white walls across from them. The air is thicker here and with a smell he can't place. The smell of hanging dust in a forgotten apartment and the smell of a long lost memory that only comes in rare sighs of siren songs. All Thor can think of is where he knows the smell from and where exactly its trace will bring him.

Room 45.

It's the only room of all the rooms in the building with numbers on it in a building that mimicked all of all the buildings in the area. It would take a minute but Thor would notice rather quickly as he got closer that the number itself is not black or made from paint, but the number is large and red and created of only blood. Layers on layers of blood. The number 45 reaches his height and drips down the wall in some spots touching the ground, gathering in a small pile of dried sacrifice on the dusty, dirty floor. Thor steps away from the dried puddle and goes to look inside the room that's as dark and empty as the many others. Thor can see from the hallway that the windows are all blacked out and can hear nothing at all when he listens closely. He steps closer and looks in but sees nothing.

"You need help, bro?" A young man in a dirty red hoodie and dark, dirty black jeans has approached looking at the newcomer up and down.

"I'm here to speak to the alien." Thor gets to the point, ignoring the startle that the presence gave him.

"Gotta leave a sacrifice…" The man grumbles from under his hood, eyes wide and glossy as a weak hand waves towards the large red number on the wall behind Thor.

The God huffs and turns away shaking his head. "Alright, thank you."

Shrugging off the foolish man, Thor starts into the room he quickly finds is empty. If there was a bathroom door and it was closed, he would have thought that perhaps she was in there but instead he sees nothing as he steps into the otherwise empty space. First, his eyes moved off the bathroom, then around the room with the plyboard windows and dirty, broken floors and spray painted walls. There's very little trash in this room, just a few cans, stone shards, dirt, broken glass and a few sets of candles that sit in threes in the corners and scattered around the center of the room. Their wicks are very cold and they don't look like they've been used as long as this building had been rotting.

"Del?" He whispers into the empty space as he raises, placing the candle back onto the floor.

"Del!" He tries again a bit louder and a bit harsher, his teeth gritting when he gets nothing in response.

This isn't going well and nothing is pointing to anything positive.

"Del!" He's frustrated now but he hears nothing and nothing moves so he turns around with weakened shoulders and heads back toward the door.

He looks towards the bathroom a final time disheartened before leaving and finding the man in the red hoodie waiting, leaning against the wall across from the doorway. Slipping his hands into his pocket Thor stares straight at the young, drug-riddled man that eyed him knowingly.

"Told ya." The young man sighs. "You also need a gift…"

"A gift?" Thor asks, knowing Delirium was never for bribes or tribute from followers. "For what?"

The young punk shrugged. "Some say to activate her power. But those like me know it's because there's no other way for her to escape. She's a very pained thing."

The young man is eyeing the larger man more cautiously now as the blond, well dressed man would step away and look behind him back into the room.

The young man pushes off the wall to a slightly swayed stance, "Honestly, I haven't met a person yet to come this far and know so little."

"And what are you to her?" Thor asks harshly, never having seen this boy a day in his life.

Right then a man who Thor had seen before and furthermore knew, steps out from the shadows and makes himself known.

"Thor…." A sudden elderly voice from behind grabs the Gods attention immediately. "Is that you?"

The young God is fast on his feet and turns around with a start as he knew the voice from centuries past.

"Master Thor?" The blind, hooded man made of rags speaks again to the world he never sees.

The voice and the presence that continues to approach comes with a chill that takes over the warmth quickly enough to notice and to break out the skin out in bumps. The limping but strong stepping figure is of what Thor would imagine was a very thin man covered in many layers of different looking rags. A raggy man was approaching on slow steps guided by the clicking of a tall metal walking staff.. The staff was nothing extraordinary, just a simple pole with a very sharp tip and a bottom that would click against the stone floor but as Thor noticed, would never echo in the empty hall. Cautiously the conversing pair becomes a group of three.

"So the rumors are true?" Thor speaks first, his heart sinking further in his chest.

"Well… I don't know what you've heard, Master Thor..."

"I've come here to speak to, Delirium."

Slowly, the man raises his arm and the sleeve falls away exposing a long black talon tipped arm that points to the number against the wall.

"You must sacrifice like all the rest." The voice of the rags resembles the broken walls and dusty floor almost exactly.

"You must be kidding me?"

"It is not my job to teach you what you already know."

Sighing, Thor moved off from where he stood and back paddled over to the wall.

"Have I truly been so disgraced?" he mutters as a pulls a knife from its holster at his waist.

"Your actions aforementioned-"

"Yeah, I know…" Thor interrupts as he slides the blade along the palm of his hand.

He slides the bloody palm down the lines of the four before the lines of the five, but the moment he finishes is the moment either man behind him holding a new sort of air in their silence. Right away the room beside him wakes with the glow of flickering candles and Thor will leave the two standing in the hall watching him as he steps in.

Inside of Room 45 is where a god lays dying on a rotted mattress inside a rotted building where steel beams reach towards the sky in the only holy union that can be found. This world on the other side of ritual is one that is just as rotted and just the same but now there is a body that wasn't there before and a figure leaning over it. Everything that happened next happened so fast and was over so quickly that between Thor stepping into the room and him seeing the ending of a liquid blue light being transferred from the lips of what he thought was a corpse to the man over her was over and he couldn't stop it.

"Hey!" Thor still pushes out but the addicts head is already up, eyes already on him.

"Hey." The slur toned, high as the clouds man smirks, "I paid for my time… Go wait outside for a few minutes. Okay?"

With the landing of the hand upon the bodies inner thigh and the immediate slow move upwards Thor's eyes bulge as he felt the heat in his fingertips again.

"Get out of here!" Thor yelled.

"Or, what man?" The junky had risen from his kneel sloppily. "I paid for my time. I've given my gift… I paid good shit."

'And you've gotten your answer. Leave."

"Fuck." The man spits pulling together some sort of stance."You kidding me, man?"

There's a moment of silent staring before the junky sighs and slinks his hand away, aware he had nothing against this blond, strong, and clearly sober man that stood before him.

"Fine. Your turn. Fuck this." He shrugs past Thor and grabs his pack off the floor that the God didn't notice on his way in while muttering hateful things about "stupid rich bitch shit" as he left.

He'd watch him go until the junky fully left which was a few seconds longer of insults said under the breath but when finally alone, Thor would take another few seconds to summon up the courage to look back at what he truly wished not to see.

"Del.." He whispers before he turns. Hoping she'll answer and come out of a corner showing that this was all just a facade.

But nothing says his name, nothing welcomes him and the room sits in complete silence except for the sound of the waving tapestry as its edges wisp against the stone wall. He watches the candlelight flicker over a ply boarded window as he pulls together the strength to finally turn around and address his nightmare. Instead, Thor sees something arguably worse. He sees the one being in all the space and time of everything who is unarguably the worst thing to see in all.

Thor sees his brother standing in what he knew was his true form. He stood like the God he was and the candlelight only turned him into the demonic form he wanted to become. The light flickers off the curved horns of his golden helm, enlarging them onto the wall into a huge threatening size. But the light also showed the Gods solemn expression quite clearly. His eyes held a firelight that did not reflect any sort of warmth that could be found on his cold stone expression. With his hands held behind his back, his eyes were cast downward with a slight tilt of his head. The fabric of his cape hangs still but a tapestry behind him has quivered again as somehow the noose seems to be turning ever so slowly as it hangs between them.. Cast in the unsteady light, this image brings Loki to resemble the many stained glass windows and painted portraits once made in his honor and displayed in halls and dark spaces... His face holds strong against a pain that rips him apart as his jaw is set stiffly against the gathering of words that clash against his teeth. After a moment, Thor approaches and lands opposite his brother whose face he'll explore before looking down to what lays between them.

There's a figure that lays more within the mattress than on top of it. Her body had left an imprint rotting and the rust of the metal springs pokes through the paper thin remains of ancient fabric. This….form, is certainly her.. But this is not the Delirium either of them know… There is no more radiant smile or starburst eyes. There is no pale white skin and delicate frame. When the corpse breaths the work looks strenuous, they can hear a rattling in her chest and the entire motion looks arduous while sounding extremely painful. Candle shadows dance over her just as they had his brother but now the shadows accentuate the blackening of her eyes and the deep ravines of malnourishment and bone. Her lips are bright red broken slits along lines of light blue and her tipped teeth are yellow and rotted. Her puffy eyes are closed but she doesn't look quite restful as she fights the strength to keep her jaw closed as she lays with her limbs twitching randomly. She knows they are here. At very least she can feel them and her writhing, unhappy response is not what Thor takes as a welcoming. The tapestry on the wall was more intact than the blanket that only barely covered her scantily dressed body that seemed to match the same dark brown and black color as everywhere else on her skin.

"Loki…" Thor whispered but the brother wouldn't look away from where his eyes had held but Thor has had enough of this haunting, nightmare scene.

"Lo-" Thor starts at that same moment his brothers dropped into a crouch and extended a hand that wasn't gloved before. He takes her wrist gently in a leather-wrapped hold and flips her arm upwards showing the notch where right away it's seen that there's a clear hole in the notch of her arm where the bones could be seen peeking through the decayed muscle. Grotesque, Thor watches his brother release the arm and fall back into himself as violently as meteor into a planet.

"Loki, what-"

"Take her out of here.." Loki speaks suddenly as he straightened up, his voice a broken monotone that was pushed out of a tight chest but his eyes had yet to leave her. "She's dying."

"I can't take her to her relm.."

"She won't survive any travel outside of this planet anyway…." Loki sighs away a great anger that he hides under a thin voice.

A moment of silence passes before Thor nods his head suddenly. "I know where we can go. Somewhere safe."

Leaning over, Thor couldn't hide the hesitation as he slipped his hands under the rotted form but he does and nearly vomits at the smell and sensation. She's sweaty, her back is like pushing a finger through the rotted skin of a peach and he was afraid he was the reason he felt liquid over his fingers as he did. When he goes to lift, his first movements brings the room to shake violently and she's placed back down suddenly.

"This isn't time for games!" Loki's anger had broken grit teeth as he snapped at Thor with a wave of his arm.

"It wasn't me!" Thor pushed back looking at Delirium.

"It was her.."

Both brothers look up at the male voice that comes from the doorway to see the rag-clad man now standing in its threshold. "I can't let you do this Master Thor…. And I certainly can not let you, Master Loki…"

"It's okay.." Thor grinned his cocky grin in an attempt to reassure. "I'm here to take her back where she can heal up for a while.."

The old man sighed sadly and shakes his head, though the ends of the many rags don't seem to match the proper swing. "If only it were that easy.. I was sent here with rules, you know."

The strands of rags are now swinging on their own and slowly growing outwards.

"Thor.." Loki pushed, his voice a warning as a knife appears in his hand.

"Yup. I'm on it.." Thor already knows what to do which was to move back towards Delirium as Loki stepped ahead.

"Now," Loki starts the final attempt to sway any battles, "the worst thing to do would be to take this as a personal affront. I understand prophecy and set rules and all that but, I'm sorry… We're really going to have to take Delirium now.."

"She wishes not to be taken by either of you!" The man's voice is no longer the quiet grumble.

The face of the red hooded young junkie has twisted into a rather demonic fashion of hatred and pointed edges. The rags of the other are now floating in every direction… the tips almost slithering with life.

A whip moves through the air so fast that if Loki wasn't a God he wouldn't have been able to stop it. The attack is on with the lift of the near-corpse and with her body secure in Thor's arms Loki's knife will shred the attempt to grab, only angering the protector further.

"Go!" Loki pushes out as his knives leave his hands and in a blink of an eye has cut through the next set of wiggling oncoming rags.

As much as Thor wished not to leave his brother in battle it had to be done and using a card he kept in his pocket for a very long time, Thor travels to the only place he knows will help.

…...

Just as quickly as the chaos in the rotted building had begun, Thor almost falls into the home but not only does Thor catch himself but a hand is there that grabs his shoulder and keeps him upright. The smirk on the lips of Doctor Stephen Strange quickly faded as Thor straightened and Strange is introduced to a very familiar scene. His eyes widen with realization and the Doctor snaps into action as it became very obvious very quickly that Loki had been correct. This travel alone had been too much and with the rip from the last of her world, she was draining like a fetus to an umbilical cord. Delirium violently convulsed in his arms and as she moaned the sound of a dying animal, blood foamed over her mouth and onto the hardwood floor.

"You're a doctor... Help her." Thor snaps back into action as another bone-rattling breath is taken through a guggled choke.

The doctor's eyes are wide as practice is snapped into action and he's pulling together material needed by the center bed.

"Put her here."

Thor would lay the body down which allowed her head limped heavily to the side. With another heavy, painful sounding cough, blood stains the once clean table.

"How's she alive?" Strange asks as he pulls open her eyelids to expose fully black eye that he released with a startled motion. Flicking off the small flashlight that he held in the other hand he's looking her over again before grasping a chunk of what he thought was her hair. Gently, he pulls out a thin black barb from the side of her head.

"Told you." Thor tries explaining it all off as passively as he can.

The room in Marrakesh was dark… so dark and with such a flickering source of light that Thor hadn't truly noticed the extent of the damage. What he thought was dirt and filth was mostly that but more so the marks were from dark injection sights and caving veins. He probably missed this because it was something he didn't want to see. When Strange lift her lips, her gums are tinted yellow which for her was abnormal and he'd tell Strange so. He didn't expect this… Her body is so thin that she looks like a human-shaped set up of bones that he had placed piece by piece on the table. He hadn't thought… or perhaps... Thor shakes the thoughts from his head as he pushed back a few steps, away from the thing on the table that wasn't Delirium… Not anymore….

It was in the moments to follow where an assistant Thor didn't know and who wasn't introduced entered the room with more serious supplies. Strange had settled between Thor and the girl who lay on the table and that was when he would suddenly remember his brother.

"Loki." He says quickly realizing his brother had yet to arrive. "You must send me back.."

"Yup." The doctor isn't paying attention because his attention is on saving a body that he knew nothing about. Pesky Gods, Strange would think to himself as he struggled for what he needed for a body that worked more like a cadaver than a living being. Those damn gods always have a way of making their problems everyone else's. With a wave of his hand, the portal is opened and Thor is through it quickly, leaving Strange alone in the silence of his personal hospital room.

…...  
….

….

…..

...

**In the Dreams of Delirium**

_Delirium dreams only of grey and black and this brings Loki no comfort at all as he lands within her world. Just moments ago he was in a corner of a room he didn't want to be in with people he didn't really like. Now he was here, a place the ocean moves in waves of ribbons and crash against the tiny sandy seashore. No…, not sand. Slowly he leans over and lifts a handful to inspect. Buttons. The tiny stones were actually buttons but nothing more colorful with a lighter shade of gray from another. This landscape will stretch on like a sheet being waved over a bed and he'd walk along the dunes until he finds something he knows._

_There are wild winged horses with lizard faces that run the beach line and burnt looking birds with cries like that of seagulls overhead. The sun shines but not too brightly and of course, it's not hot because dreams have no tangible weather; even the dreams of banished demigods. The sand dunes are perfect for climbing and once on top of one no different from the others, he sees a little white home with a light grey roof that hadn't been there before. The scene has changed... To the right is a long cliff wall that looks more like a crumpled and shaped piece of paper while to his right a few dunes over is the cabin he recognizes immediately. Deliriums landscape is one of loud and chaos and the everlasting silence that's befallen this land mocks him with every push up the steep set of hills. Once he's close enough he notices the land has evened out suddenly, and slowly he approaches the beach where the cabin sits._

_Delirium is healthy here and looks just as he remembered her when they were younger. Radiant even in greyscale, she's wearing a long grey dress whose hood is raised and many different fabrics wave off of. Apocalyptic looking. Instead of hair, she has thin but_ very _strong fine set of quills that lay down against her head and layer mid-way down her back ending in a point. Her body is strong, her legs are built from horseback riding and long adventures while her arms are defined from swordplay and dedicated labor but even now there's something wrong. Her skin is so shallow and her wear is so grey, her eyes are blank as the sky above their head and all of this did nothing for his anxieties but he doesn't say a word._

_On the beechwood porch of the cottage, she's standing in the arms of a man who looks exactly like him, dressed in robes that looked far more like what he would prefer to dress in than black suits and that suffocating tie... His dream form fits his likeness perfectly and even wears his curved golden helm but this is something that with a wave of his hand he takes from her because he was here now. For a moment she looks surprised, but then cautious as her eyes land on his approaching form._

_"Delirium." He speaks above the ocean breeze as he takes the step up to the porch._

_"Loki." Her voice sounds lost as he approaches but she wouldn't move away from him when he met her nearly toe to toe._

_Fluidly, his arm loops around her as he takes his place behind her, filling in the role his dream self-had held._

_"I can smell your scent," she whispers as his arm wraps her waist but her spine remains stiff._

_"It's been a long while since I've come..."_

_"But why? Why have you come back?" She asks him as her hand gently lands against his arm._

_"_ Because _your dying."_

_"But why you?"_

_Loki pauses and swallows down his stomach as he nodded his head. "Odin is dead."_

_A moment passes and she'll step from Loki who slowly drops his arms to the side as she stepped out, the porch moving with her. "I remember that I was punished and there was note that was said among the commerce that even the death of Odin would not break this punishment."_

_"Until death shall I never touch you."_

_"Then are you really your sister in disguise?"_

_She always had a way of pushing buttons with those around her and in her space and her world changed to her. His teeth grit just slightly as the waves grew. She turns away and he steps up behind her, his arms slipping behind his back. "You laid in rot in some disgusting abandoned building in a ghetto of Marrakesh under the guise of Room 45."_

_He takes another step closer to her and she'll keep her back to him and not move. He can smell her scent as well from where he stood but when his hand touches her shoulder he cannot feel even the fabric of her sleeve. Her eyes are cast away now, out watching the sea as she thought, her hand touching the banister of the porch as his hand took a grip on her arm._

_"Am I dead..?" She'll ask him._

_"No.."_

_Again there's silence which is unlike Delirium. He had smelled her scent before he saw the cabin. A mixture of used matchsticks and old books. He remembers the feeling of fabric under his fingers and remembers the feel of smoothness along the back long hair full of quills. He's longed for this just as much as she had but yet she will not accept him._

_"You're close or you're a lie." She whispers and her fingers tighten on the wooden banister._

_"I'm right next to you."_

_"You're a lier."_

_"You were about to die.." He speaks calmly, dropping his hand._

_"You should have left me... I'm not going back," she says quietly, her eyes cast outwards towards the sea..._

_"You have to at some point."_

_"I don't…" She turns and tries to push by him but she's taken by the shoulders and pulled back._

_"I know I'm about to die!" she spits at him as she brushes him off. "I've waited a very long time to finally be released from this prison and I know that time is nigh."_

_"I am, at this moment, about 10 feet away from your body…" His voice is_ a snakes _whisper in her ear._

_"You're a lier."_

_"Open your eyes and look… I'm to your left.."_

_"I-"_

_His hand is on her head and she begins to feel the uncomfortable rush of lucidity in a sickened body. She knows where she is is a dream and had known this the entire time but suddenly there's a hard table under her back and a pillow under her head though in her dream she's still standing. She feels the air of a room that is not by the sea, but her body was weak and her muscles felt heavy and she felt terrible and agonized right from the first moment. Even her fingers are uncooperative but under the skin feels like fire is running through her body. Her eyes have cracked open and her head falls to the left, her cheek touching the cold of the pillow. There are other people around her who stand as blurs. They are something that moves constantly around her but is also something she ignores as she feels her way through the room... For a moment and only a moment, she sees him. Sitting on the ground in a shadow a few feet away just as promised with his head down and arms resting on his knees. He was there and so was she_..

_Falling back in her dream with a breath that burned her lungs she dissolves back into a place she'd rather be and back in the arms she's missed so much._

_"Until I touch you… you don't exist." She breaks an unbroken promise of trust._

_"You're impossible. Why?"_

_A rumble shivers across the sky that_ sounds _like a herd of buffalo on the African planes._

_"I don't like this, Loki." Her tone is darkening, "this dream is terrible!"_

_"I'm not a dream."_

_"Then this is a nightmare!"She pulls away from him and turned to look at him fully now. "If what you say is true… That means you're treating this like nothing happened. Don't you understand…. Although you may not suffer trauma the last many millenniums I've experienced enough for all three of us. I want to die Loki_.. _That's what you don't understand."_

_"But you can come back!"_

_"Just like Odin?!"_

_He bites his tongue and she'll continue coldly. "Not until death can you touch me again… means nothing after death has passed. It's just a game... It's all just a terrible terrible game."_

_"I never wanted to leave you.: His voice is suddenly very sharp, the response of a broken man never allowed his pain to show, "I never wanted a sunrise away from you and you know that.."_

_They stand apart. She's afraid more than she's anything else. She's been under so long what else could he expect, she had obviously built a life here while the entire world's existence passed by her._

_"Why do you act as if you fear me?"_

_"Because you've come to me before... Last time.." She looks away from him, her arms crossing. "Right before the end of my ends came you brought me back just to leave again…You had never existed and were just an illusion then... and I promised I wouldn't trick myself into doing that again._

_This isn't what he wanted. Too much time had been lost and it had been long for this to be their first conversation so he gives up with weakening to his neck._

_"Sit with me then?" He shrugs as he pulls himself up and over the banister. "Until it's time to go just... Stay with me.."_

_She softens her position because she does love him and will in her own time, walk up and stand beside him._

_"Do you remember this place?" She asks him._

_"This is where I told you I loved you for the first time..."_

_"I told you I froze that moment."_

_"That you did…. I recall it all being just a little brighter though."_

_Her smile is a sun in this world and the sky is suddenly a lighter shade that resembled a sort of blue._

_The time to pass will be countless and quiet but ever so slowly Loki would notice more color is returning to the world. The sky started looking like liquid and the clouds looked like trails of white gloss. The ribbon water looked red and the beach started breaking out in different color specks. Eventually, when the world is still mostly greyscaled she stirs against him and he looks down to see impatience in her expression._

_"What?" He asks._

_"You're not going to leave… are you?"_

_"The weakness of this place is that time is irrelevant. But your time consciousness in it will retain your body until it heals enough._

_"You're not going to let me die... Are you?"_

_"Not when I've found a way to preserve it."_

_She stands quietly for a time as she bites on the inside of her cheek before nodding her head._

_"Then… I think... I think I'm about ready to go back..."_

_"Yeah?" He asks her and she nods. She doesn't feel connected anymore to this world as much as she had tried to hold onto it and she felt the cobwebs of age touching her skin and spiders that settled between her bones. Her fingers slip into his and with a nod his way that he'll return, she closes her eyes and breaths out slowly._

_"Will you be there?" She asks him._

_"I haven't left…"_

….

Slowly, black circled ink black eyes break open and she's staring up into the dim light wooden paneled boards of a bedroom she didn't know. This was certainly not where she last remembered being but she knew she was awake, foggy headed, but with this brought immense pain that set her world in fire and waves of sickness. Her teeth grit against the ripping agony that came with every bend of any ligament and even with a mind in such a haze of withdrawal and pain medication, her limbs were shaking like she was cold and had been running for miles and miles…. She's out of breath and she finds that she has a problem filling her lungs. Her chest is sore and her lungs feel like hardened balloons. Her feet and toes are both cold but through all the pain and daze she remembers something she wouldn't forget.

Quickly, she looks around but sees no one there, just an empty room but there is a note in her hand that she looks at. Here, as she raises her arm just slightly she sees her condition and hands for the first time in she doesn't doesn't remember how long. Blackened, scabbed and rotted, her skin is cleaned but the blown and black veins and damage remain. Using the dim lamp she reads the words written beautifully on the parchment.

"Om.. omisnia Ogmosta… Her throat is broken and sore and she coughs up blood she tries to wipe away with an arm that wouldn't bend that way.

Suddenly the door opened and a man she has never seen before steps in.

"Hello, Delirium," The man speaks kindly as he casually materializes what looked like a glass of water. "My name is Doctor Strange and yo-"

"What's your name?" She interrupted with eyes the flickered back from the drink onto him.

His lips went together and she knows the expression quite well and watches the man go about a familiar dialogue as he presses a button aside her bed that rose her slowly and painfully into an upright sit.

"I'm Doctor Stephen Strange. I'm the doctor who brought you back from the dead."

She smiles a smile that is not very kind. "And who asked you to do that I wonder? It wasn't me."

"Well." The doctor walks around the bed, handing her the cup of water and begins to pull the IV from her arm while checking the meters she didn't realize she was hooked up too.

"What is all this?" She asked angrily, pulling off stickers and subsequently flatlining the bumping lines the doctor had been looking at. "And you don't look like a doctor."

Setting his jaw, Strange slips into a new technique. He backs up and nods his head.

"Thor is who brought you here and who is currently in the lounge. He will not take himself or his brother off this planet until you go see them... We've all been waiting for you to come around for quite a while and I'm ready to return to my normal routine.."

"Thor…" Her voice is weak which was something Strange didn't expect.

"Yes, Thor…"

She thinks for a moment, her eyes turning around the room again tightening into fists that crumpled the blankets as tightly as her weakened hands could. Thor must have put Loki in her mind… Thor is that kind of evil where he would do that without much of a push… Her teeth grit but by now Strange has noticed all this and draws closer.

"Problem?"

Lifting her head Delirium looks straight at the human man with eyes blacker than inkwells. She blinks once and then looks away, her expression weakening.

"Thor is here?"

"Yes," He repeats calmly.

"And he brought me here?"

"He brought you to my office. We are elsewhere else as of now."

"Where?"

"The Avengers headquarters."

"The Avengers?" She shakes her head and just begins to take note of her skeletal form unhappily. "I've never heard of them… Are they human like you?"

"For the vast majority."

"So you're just his toy…"

Strange cocks his head as Delirium attempts to push herself up just to quickly fail under joints that would break and melt into agony before her back is even of the table and inch. He watches her anger turn to pain as her body lay weak. He sees a teardrop from her eye and this will pull him over to her weakened state.

"Come up." Gently, he'll be there to help her sit up with his hand gently against her back.. Her teeth grit and her eyes squeezed closed as the long few minutes of sharp pain race through her very alive body. The doctor will stand and watch her push through and will help her until her legs hang off the table.

"So, what do you mean by that?" He asks when her skin tight form comes to rest and she takes another small sip of water.

She chuckles a weak noise from a hallowed breath as her arm wraps her stomach but her smile is there to be seen. "Nothing, Doctor. Let's go see the son of Odin, shall we?"

Ignorant of her pain she insists on suddenly pushing herself off the bed and while she lands trying to stand, her legs give her up instantly and again she falls into a pit of pain while the Doctor moves to catch her.

"Here." He says when he's gotten her near weightless form back onto the bed. He waves his hand and suddenly a wheelchair wheels itself out of a nearby closet.

Shaking her head she looks away as if she's ashamed which she is but Strange is there with his own opinions. "You won't need it for long…" He assures as he takes her arm with his own shaking hand.

Lifting her arm for her to show her he exposes the rot of her joints she had avoided looking at until this point... "Anyone else would have required amputation… or would be dead…. But I guess you're a species that combats both like an arrow through paper… Already you're healing is extraordinarily fast but umm... If I may."

He pulls a dark tan fabric wraps from his pocket and looks at her. "Arms?"

She nods and holds an arm out for him as best as she can in such a weakened and painful state.

"These are the first arm wraps that I used to train in my first magic lessons." He speaks quietly of things so personal as she watched him secure the sleeve of her short sleeve scrub shirt.

He goes onto wrap the sandy white fabric around her upper forearms covering the holes and track marks that blackened her flesh. He wound down to her wrists that had little islands of fleshy holes among blown veins and up to the notch in her arm.

"They're filled with a past built of potential and learning. May they hide the imperfections of past trauma and remind you that you are strong." He's gentle as he works with shaking hands and when he looks up she'll already be looking at him already. She says nothing and he reads her the best he can, waiting to see if she'd pull away but no, she sits quietly the entire time until he's done with only the tops of her fingers showing.

"There." He says quietly as he fastens the final claps and leans back on his heels.

She'll thank him quietly and then she'll let him help her into the wheelchair without collapsing and after a moment she's down and secured with the doctor appearing behind her with a blanket he lays over her lap.

"There's one more thing." He says as he connects an IV bag to the tall extending pole that was attached at the back of the chair. "Thor explains in a way you follow human body code so for now, to help speed up healing I would prefer you on a drip… It'll help."

She'd agree with only a solemn head nod and an IV was pushed into the side of her neck as it was the only place it could be kept. A rare instance occurs then as Doctor Strange wraps his fingers around the handles of her chair. He'll push her until she told him off but she wouldn't tell him off so he wouldn't let her go. She knows her legs are rotten and in turn so are her knees and much of her hips. Notches refuse to set and weight is broken under the slightest strain. The generations of drugs had at one point pushed her across the line of reality and her demigod form had since molded to the rot of the earth.

For now...

"This is expansive" She'll compliment as he pushes her through two large doors that lead from the medical room to the rest of the windowless floor.

"Thank you. I'm quite fond of it as well. I'll admit Tony has always had a way with architecture."

"Who's Tony?" She asks which incited a chuckle from Strange.

"He likes to think of himself as the most known man on Earth."

'Is he?" She asks as he pushes her by a glass wall that shows a training room.

"Arguably."

The halls were quiet and empty but Delerium's mind was sharp and awake enough to explore the settings that passed her as she's wheeled down the very lavish hall.

"So.." Strange asks at one point as they turn a corner and enter an already open elevator. "Are those quills?"

She'll feel him lean over her shoulder and press the button up before feeling the box shiver as it began to rise.

"Were." Her voice is dry and broken and she takes another heavy breath as the box dings the ground floor. The door slides open and Delirium is pushed out into the main hall of a grand home she never remembered entering. Quite confused and dissociated, Strange must have seen or felt something within her because at that moment he would say as he pushed her from the box,

"We're in New York, America. You've been here for two days and three nights. It's about three in the morning now.."

And then they wouldn't talk as they crossed the entryway and up until they got to the door where a wall of familiarity hits her.

"Stop."

Her hands clasp around each wheel which will freeze both the chair and the Doctor who look down at her confused. Her breathing is more rapid now. Her shoulders are stiff and her neck is tight. She holds onto the wheels with every bit of strength she has even when the man has stopped pushing her.

"Wh-"

"I'm not ready." She speaks hurriedly, her eyes casting downwards. "I… I can't let that idiot see me like this."

Pointing out of the obvious with a sigh Strange gives the chair a slight push. "Who do you think brought you here? I can't imagine in what world you look'd worse now.."

She's not strong enough to stop the chair and the rubber slides between her fingers and quick enough she gives up as the Doctor acts as the driver. The double doors will open for her and together they will enter a large common area that is filled with more than just The God of Thunder.

They had walked into a fight between two brothers who both stopped their callous words and softened their combative stances immediately. There were others as well; a cocky man in a sharp business suit and tie stands with a coffee mug in one hand while his other hands' fingers twitch angrily. There's a man with sandy blond hair and blue eyes who looks just as angry as the short man with brown curly hair who stood off to the side with his hands balled. There's a woman in black next to another man who looked a lot like the first though less aristocratic and upfront.

All eyes have fallen on her pathetic form as she's wheeled into the common space but Delirium only sees one through glossy ink jet black eyes. He's the last to look at her and had kept his back towards her knives held in each fist will vanish as he turns and looks at her but says nothing. Loki turns and looks back but doesn't say a single word, just nods his head once and takes a soft step back away from her. She knows the hints of a motion she'd rather not see as both gods weaken a knee and curve their backs, their hands already on their chest.

"Stop." She speaks sharply, stopping the motion in its birth. She speaks mainly to Loki though Thor will listen too. "I don't deserve such honors… Not as long as I'm like this…."

Both Gods look incredibly uncomfortable and the weight of their strife hangs in the air like a thick winters fog. Thor looks at Delerium, Loki looks out the window and by now Delirium is not looking either.

"Who are all you?" She asks as she turns to the others. "Why are you here?"

Destruction is very personal and Delirium was not one to share her pain so these strangers who kept popping into her haze were quickly becoming irritating to the weak woman.

Strange would answer for them all. "They are the Avengers. You were in such a state when you were brought to my home by Thor that I needed a second opinion."

"I as you know, I am Tony Stark who-"

"I don't know a Tony Stark." She interrupts the introduction with brows pressed.

The suited man laughs out loud like what she was saying was somehow a joke but the laughter dies quickly and dies painfully as it should.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Stark. It must be incredibly insulting for a God like yourself to be forgotten."

"I'm no God."The man assured.

"Then you have no place to expect such treatment from me."

"This is our headquarters" Stark snapped but she shook her head and looked away.

"This is my planet." She gives a weak laugh of her own which will bring the mortal to look confused and just so off put.

"You're a lier." Tony attempted which is received with a sudden frown.

"Am I a lier… Thor?" Slowly, the attention of the inkjet eyes would transfer their attention to Thor who would shift the weight uncomfortably.

But she won't wait for an answer because she doesn't care for whatever this man has to think. She can turn the wheelchair just slightly to look directly at the Thunder God who stands weakly in her glare.

"I hear you brought me here." She speaks only to him.

"We did." He admits but this just makes her madder as her eyes flash to Loki who still has only passed a glance towards her and who is standing with his head cast down and his arms behind his back.

"Who am I?" She looks at Tony.

"I'm sorry?" He asks, placing the mug on the closest surface as he approached.

She looks at Stark for only a moment before turning back to Thor, her eyes raised. "You take me against my will and bring these strangers into your doings… and you didn't even this little club who I am?!"

"I told him much the same." Loki would interject as younger brothers would.

"I know you did Loki because your cause is no purer than his. Why didn't you swallow your enormous ego and just speak it yourself?"

"Say what? Who are you?" The dusty haired man speaks out for the first time and Strange crosses his arms and waits for the answers he had waited days to hear.

"Who are you?"

"You can call me, Captain America."

"Well." She nodded. "I am Delirium." She answers simply. "I am above the gods of space and time because I am the Esoteric-Sense. An ever existent chaos that touches every being in every corner of mirror space. There is no realm where I do not infect and there is no darkness beyond me besides that of sweet Death. But that is not the story of this."

Her eyes are as sharp of her expression as it seems no one is safe from her fury even Loki or those that stand around. Strangers arms drop and Tony takes a straightening up a step.

And what is… This."

Attention returns to Thor as Delirium waits patiently, her back curved into the rest of the chair and her head cocking to one side. "The least you can do is tell your friends why you took their time from them."

"Hey! Where are you going?" Bruce calls out suddenly, turning the heat and the attention from Thor to the god who had been quietly backing away and had made it quite a distance to the opposite door. "Why… why is he leaving all of a sudden?"

"Yes, Thor…" Deliriums voice is low. "Why doesn't Loki want to stay?"

Cornered, a man like Thor wouldn't run away from this and he sighs and shakes his head, turning back to his brother who had straightened up. He was waiting… They all were.

"Well... We both..." He motions to Loki who glares at his brother disdainfully. "We all met when we were very new to the galaxy. I remember when we would play as young powers. While Loki most likely doesn't remember a time without Delirium… I can' hardly say the same..." He nods his head as he creates the next string of words.

"But…" Thor continued. "It is forbidden for a God to tie with such a power and when we were young and Loki involved himself with.." He's tumbling over his words now, his attention cast onto Delirium in a defeated fashion. "It was found out an-"

"No!" Loki's voice booms, his voice echoing through the room as his hand lifts, the point of the dagger aimed straight at Thor... "You tell this shameful excuse for a tale correctly! You tell these… mortals about how the great God Thor fell to the darkness of jealousy that I had something he didn't so he went and did the greatest sin."

"Which was?" Strange pushed the conversation on before a fight would distract from the point.

"He told his daddy," Delirium stated stiffly sending the room into another bout of unstable silence until she would speak again

"Well… you can imagine Daddy Odin was not happy. When daddy finds out he goes to his adopted son and threatens the worst… No God of anything, even deception and trickery would break these laws of so-called Order and thus I was separated and barred from Asgard and the brothers were barred from me."

"I wouldn't listen," Loki speaks through grit teeth and a side cast glare.

"Neither of us would and then again the brother breaks the cardinal promise. Thor would find us together and again he goes off to fill his bed with many women and his mind with much alcohol but never once would he find peace. So, very much like himself, Thor would go back to his father."

"'Father', he'd cry." Loki picked up so smoothly. "Father, my brother, my younger brother is happy with something I have not and you must put a stop to it because how am I to be happy when he is even happier?"

Thor wouldn't look at either of them as they spoke but the party around them refused to interject.

"So Odin goes to the Oldest and tells of my trespasses. Law will take over.." Delirium whispers.

"And an innocent is cast into the depth of the hell of an infancy planet and we are to be separated forever more." Loki finishes in a gravel tone but still the two have not looked at each other since she had entered the room though, Loki had taken a few of his retreating steps back into the group.

"So, time began to pass slower than anything the banished expected and every day she suffered from her sadness as she lay in what she thought was the forgotten." Loki's voice is quiet but his footsteps are quieter. He's moved past his brother and is approaching Delirium, giving her the attention they both had been avoiding as he spoke between thin lips.

"She suffered greatly alone and succumb to the world of her dreams… All the while not knowing that Odin has indeed died."

At this point, Loki stands before the footplates of the wheelchair and the two watch each other with the stone faces of tightly held emotions. He sighs away a sadness as slowly he pushes out his naked open palm. Slowly, the two extend to each other and everyone including Thor looks up to watch. All eyes are held in anticipation and right when the skin was supposed to connect… it won't. At the last moment before contact is made there's a sharp, painful blue spark that erupts between them causing both to rip their hands away and each to stare at the swollen whip line that was already appearing.

"But laws are still in place." She says sadly looking at her hand before glancing up at Doctor Strange.

"Can we go now? I'll find myself out the next time I wake but now I'd really just like the opportunity to rest one more time... I'm just really tried.."

Quietly, she's pushing the wheels back with great effort and turns the chair from the group that stands together. Strange will oblige and will take the handles to save the embarrassment and she'll let him steer her away. She's taken from the room but when the roll call is checked next, the group will find that along with the departure of Delirium and Strange, Loki had vanished just the same. She'll be brought to a bedroom instead of the hospital space she was in before and quietly and gently, Strange would lift her limp and pained skeletal form into the bed.

"I just want to sleep." She assures. "And then I'll leave and so will they..."

She pulls the blanket up to her shoulder with cracking fingers as her head turns away from the man who watched her cautiously.

"Can you take some medication for me first? Physically speaking, last time I checked your heart you were racing as your body is going through withdrawal."

"I'll power through without it... Thank you."

Strange shifted on his feet and glanced around the room. "You'll start regressing without a proper detox control. Heart attack.. coma... stroke.."

"Bring it on." She muttered.

But she's too tired to fight so when she feels a prick of a needle she's instantly overcome by muscle memory that will not match the past. This time nothing happens, no wave of cold no follow up haze... she'll open her eyes to the same hell on Earth she was just in. She waits a moment, takes another shot without an argument and when nothing comes from that she gives up and closes her eyes.

Behind her eyelids she pretends things were like the way they were before. She can see her realm so vividly like this. The room so dark and empty... she can hear the footsteps of Gen fading away as she pretends she's not in New York... The bedroom door is closed which isn't a sound from her realm so she'll give up her pretending and in time fall into the reviving meditative sleep that would continue to heal her quicker than if she were awake. She won't dream of anything and this perhaps is the hardest part of it all.


End file.
